By The Grumpy Journalist

They finally did it. AOL took the modem out behind the barn and told it there’s a nice farm upstate with unlimited minutes. On September 30, 2025, the dial-up service that taught America patience—and busy signals—got the plug pulled. No, not a rumor from your uncle who still calls Google “the AOL.” The real deal. The screech is dead; long live the buffering wheel.

For the holdouts still paying for the privilege of tying up the house phone to load one photo of a cat in 7,000 vertical lines: my condolences. For the rest of us: we’ve been eulogizing this thing since the first cable installer tracked mud through our living rooms.

Let’s clear a few basics before the nostalgia fog rolls in: AOL’s dial-up is gone. The companion relics—AOL Dialer and AOL Shield, those crutches for aging systems—are stamped “discontinued.” The email addresses live on, so your aunt’s beachbum1947@aol.com will keep forwarding chain letters about coupon scams and miracle vitamins. The internet survives; your patience, perhaps not.

If you’re shocked this still existed, join the club. A modest population—rural dead zones, backup lines, professional nostalgists—kept the heartbeat going. They’ll migrate to whatever passes for broadband out where the cows outnumber the routers. Meanwhile, a thousand shoeboxes of free-trial CDs finally found their purpose as coasters.

Do I feel warm and fuzzy about it? Sure. I also feel warm and fuzzy about typewriter ribbon, pay phones, and newsroom coffee that dissolves spoons. Doesn’t mean I want any of them back. Dial-up had character, but so does a manual choke on a winter morning. Progress is supposed to be rude; it shows up uninvited and moves your furniture.

So farewell, handshake tones. You taught a generation the difference between “connecting” and actually getting anywhere. Somewhere a fax machine salutes, jams, and asks for more paper. We move on, slightly faster, still arguing about the same things—only now in 4K.

AOL discontinued its dial-up service effective September 30, 2025. AOL confirmed the change on its help site; coverage by AP and others notes that associated software (AOL Dialer and AOL Shield) was also retired, while AOL email and other non-dial-up services continue. Recent reporting pegged remaining U.S. dial-up users in the low hundreds of thousands. —SynthPaper Research Desk.